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Dr. Alexis Carrel was born at Ste.-Foy-les-Lyon, France, on June 28,
1873. He received his medical degree from the University of Lyon in 1900. After
various unsatisfactory assignments, he left for Montreal in 1904 but almost
immediately moved on to the department of physiology at the University of
Chicago.
The death of
Sadi Carnot, President of France, by the knife of an assassin had seemed to
Carrel completely unnecessary and kindled in him a burning devotion to vascular
surgery. After exhaustive work, he devised a meticulous technique of suture
repair of lacerated vessels instead of ligation. Success in the anastomosis of
both arteries and veins soon followed. In a lecture at Johns Hopkins in 1905,
he reported on this work and also on the successful transplantation of a dog's
kidney to a position in its .neck. On the basis of this work, Dr. Flexner
offered him a fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute. He quickly accepted this
offer and continued his work. In 1909, when he anastomosed the radial artery of
a young New York surgeon to the popliteal vein of his 4 day old infant daughter
to transfuse blood for melena neonatorum, the event received wide publicity
(See Vascular Surgery, Pg. 89). He continued his work with heart-bypass and
heart valve surgery. His success merited the award of the Nobel Prize in
Medicine in 1912, the first such award to come to America. At this time, he
became a member of the Rockefeller Institute.
When, in 1914, Germany
declared war, Carrel was on vacation in France and was immediately inducted
into military service. Supported by a Rockefeller Foundation grant of $20,000,
he established a special hospital at Compiegne where, with Henry Dakin, an
English Biochemist, he investigated the use of the Carrel-Dakin solution in the
treatment of infections, particularly empyema. Simon Flexner was impressed with
this work and, after the United States entered the war, induced the Army and
Navy to establish the War Demonstration Hospital in New York. In six weeks,
with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, sixteen wooden buildings were
constructed and the project started with Carrel as director. Three French
medical officers, previously trained by him, assisted Carrel in the instruction
of American officers in the method. Twice each month, from August 2, 1917 until
March 2, 1919, medical officers, bacteriologists, and chemists received
training. Civilian patients were soon replaced by returning military patients.
Major George Stewart delivered, at the first AATS meeting, a paper on this
experience entitled "Treatment of Empyema by the Carrel-Dakin Method." (See Pg.
43)
As was true with many others of his time, Carrel's interests followed
diverse channels. In an effort to explain wound healing, tissue culture became
an obsession with him. Starting in 1910, he carried the Rous fowl sarcoma
through many cultural generations. When his reports were disputed, he initiated
the culture of embryonic chick heart muscle cells. By 1921, he had carried this
through 1500 generations and, subsequently, his associates perpetuated this
culture for 34 years until 1946, 2 -years after his death. Although fibroblasts
rather than muscle cells constituted these cultures, the accomplishment is
still recognized as significant. This success generated an interest in organ
culture, for which he suggested refrigeration and prolonged perfusion as aids.
The latter led to his effort with Lindbergh in constructing their pump, a
popular exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair. This also produced their jointly
authored book "The Culture of Organs."
After the war he resumed his work at the Institute until his retirement
in 1940 and subsequent return to his native France in 1941. He never saw
America again, dying at his home in the midst of disaster in 1944, at the age
of 71.
Surely The New York Society for Thoracic Surgery and The American
Association for Thoracic Surgery can take pride in men such as Alexis Carrel
being numbered among their Founding Fathers.
Dr. Alexis Carrel
